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End misleading broadband claims

Posted by Peter Black | Updated 2014-07-10

This is an article for the South Wales Evening Post

During a debate in the National Assembly on the digital economy recently, the Welsh Liberal Democrats called for an end to misleading broadband claims which often see customers paying for high speed broadband contracts which do not reflect the speed of service that was advertised.

I am very concerned that people locally may not be getting a fair deal from their broadband provider. Customers are paying for high speed broadband contracts but in reality they only receive very slow broadband speeds which do not match the level of service that was advertised.

Many businesses and individuals have contacted me to say that the current system is very unfair, because companies are able advertise that their broadband service is 'up to' a certain speed even if the majority of customers will receive a lower speed in practice.

In some places such as Skewen, Jersey Marine and Birchgrove businesses are still waiting for their service to be upgraded with the result that they have been put at a further disadvantage.

The EU is taking steps to ensure that operators must be more transparent about the actual broadband speeds provided and end misleading advertising. Under current ASA guidelines, advertised speeds must only be achievable by 10% of a provider's customers, which is clearly unfair.

The measures being proposed by the EU would help end excessive claims of internet companies who claim to deliver more megabytes than they actually do. This is another example of the European Union working in our interests.

Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government on these measures to ensure that we can bring an end to the unfair treatment of customers by powerful telecoms companies.

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